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The Past and Future of America as a Global Superpower

Editor’s Note: Robert Kagan discusses the past and future of America as a global superpower and his most recent book, The World America Made, in an interview on The Colbert Report.

Colbert: My guest tonight is the author of a new book titled The World America Made – although for tech support, you’re gonna want to call India. Please welcome Robert Kagan!Mr. Kagan, thanks for coming on.

Kagan: Thank you.

Colbert: Man, I am so happy that you are on this show, because you’re a neo-con. Right?.

Kagan: I guess. That’s what they tell me.

Colbert: That’s what they told me about you too.

Kagan: Ok

Colbert: I miss you guys. Because back in the early 2000’s, back in the Bush administration, you guys were like the Cabbage Patch Kids, the Tickle Me Elmo. Everyone had to have a neo-con on their team. It’s like talking to a collectors item.

Kagan: Thank You. Thank you

Colbert: Now, you’re a whole bunch of different things. You’re senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, you’re a Washington Post columnist – I’m surprised that liberal rag lets you write over there – and a foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney. Is that as sexy as it sounds?

Kagan: I’m very honored to be able to work and help to governor in any way that I can.

Colbert: You’re one of 24 guys advising him on foreign policy.

Kagan: At least. He’s got quite a…

Colbert: But you’re the best one, right?

Kagan: I’m sure that’s not the case, no.

Colbert: No, c’mon, c’mon! Alright, now you’ve got a book called The World America Made. What is the world America made?

Kagan: Well it’s the world that the United States, with its influence after World War II, created. It’s a liberal international economic order of free and open markets. It’s a world increasingly democratic. Before World War I, there were ten democracies, today there are 115.

Colbert: We did that?

Kagan: We did do that, yeah.

Watch the full interview »